


Tastes like Chocolate

by Luthor



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Outlaw Queen - Freeform, trope trope trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outlaw Queen: in which Regina eats ice cream, and then Robin eats ice cream, and then they... kind of... eat ice cream off each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tastes like Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

> Bad mood + Ben&Jerry's + desperately embarrassing love of tropes = this fic. 
> 
> I'm... sorry about it?

It’s well past midnight already, but when Robin steps into an unguarded sitting room he isn’t surprised to see that the only room within the castle that has a fire burning is also the one that holds its Queen.

He pauses at first, unsure what to say. He’d been unable to sleep himself and thought that he’d go for a walk, or else find a bottle of liqueur; it was pure chance that he’d come this way, investigating the twists and turns within the great castle, and found a glow emanating from an open archway.

Inside, Regina has her back to him. She is a silhouette against the fire.

He’s about to leave her to her thoughts when he hears, “Don’t just stand there; you might as well take a seat.”

Robin freezes, wets his lips, and then glances out at the corridor behind him. He thinks of Roland, alone in his room, and considers simply returning to him. Turning back into the room, he quickly dismisses that idea when he sees Regina has turned to see him. Her hair is free of its controlled up-do, and hangs to around her waist, dark and shining in the fire’s light. The flames catch her eyes, too, and Robin feels a stirring in his chest as they pull at his own.

While there’s still that fierceness lurking – waiting – just beneath her surface, he feels no intimidation in approaching her. She’s sitting with a bowl of something and a spoon. He takes a seat at the other end of the chaise lounge and glances into the bowl – something dark and thick. When he looks up again, he notices a trace of it by the corner of her lips.

“What are you doing, lurking around the corridors so late?” she asks, her hands cupping further around her bowl.

“I wasn’t lurking.” Robin shifts and shrugs his shoulders. “I was struggling to sleep.”

“You’re dissatisfied with your room?” Her eyebrow arches at the thought; he shouldn’t be in it, still, and wouldn’t be, if not for his boy.

“Not at all. No, no. It’s perfectly satisfactory,” Robin mutters, leaning back. The fire is warm on his bare feet and arms. “It’s the bed, if anything.” That catches Regina’s attention, so he continues, “I am but a thief, in your words. I know not many luxuries; while you might prefer your goose-feather pillows, I’d find more comfort in a simple straw mattress.”

“You’re complaining,” Regina says, incredulous, “about the high quality of the furniture I’ve allowed you to occupy?”

Robin’s lips twitch in that famous half-smile of his, and Regina frowns when she catches herself staring.

“It’s not my intention to be rude—”

“Impertinent,” Regina corrects, glancing back towards the fire.

“Of course,” he agrees, grinning. “Though I have little doubt that it was the state of your mattress that has you here now.”

Regina makes a small noise of agreement.

“So what? A sudden craving?” He can’t help it – he’s curious. He glances down at the bowl again, leaning slightly closer, until he catches scent of whatever’s inside. Something sweet – not what he’d been expecting. “What—is that?”

Regina looks up at him confused, and then (is it just a trick from the glow of the fire?) blushes as she glances down into the bowl. She seems to cradle it closer against herself, protecting it, and then stiffens out any self-consciousness.

“It’s a kind of dessert,” she says, shaking her head. “It was—Henry’s favourite.”

Robin nods his head, and his eyes dip back to that little smudge by her lip again. “You have a little…” He gestures to his own mouth, and then goes to reach out. Regina stiffens, and for a second he thinks that she might move away, but her face remains perfectly motionless as he swipes the coarse pad of his thumb along the corner of her lips.

The move tugs a faint smile from them that he isn’t sure if he caused, or if it came from Regina herself, and he pulls back only when he feels a torrent of her cool breath against his knuckles. He doesn’t mean to do it (doesn’t even think about it), but he’s so used to swiping up and eating for himself whatever food Roland has taken a bite out of and discarded. It’s more muscle memory than anything else, he thinks, as he swipes his thumb past his lips and sucks the trace of dessert onto his tongue.

It’s tastes chocolatey and cool.

Regina looks only faintly alarmed by his actions, and clears her throat, colour bleeding into her cheeks. Above the crackle of the fire, he hears her exhale and feels his heartbeat speed up. Shifting subtly closer, he asks, “The name of this—dessert, what is it?”

“It’s ice cream,” Regina answers, and it takes her a moment to fully meet his gaze. But once she’s there, she finds it’s almost impossible to turn away.

“You made it yourself?”

Regina’s head dips with a small nod, her lips twitching. Oh, the wonders of magic…

“I… couldn’t sleep.”

“And this helps?” Robin asks, glancing down into her bowl. The ice cream looks like it’s melting, now, either from the heat of the fire, or the heat of her body pressed against the bowl (a combination of both, Robin figures).

“It can,” Regina shrugs, her voice oddly breathless.

“Then… you wouldn’t mind,” Robin begins, gesturing towards her bowl, “sharing your cure?”

His lips twitch at the idea, and Regina simply nods along until she realises just what she’s agreed to. Her heart leaps past her throat as Robin reaches for the spoon, his hand brushing along her arm. He stirs the ice cream a moment, and Regina finds herself helping him, angling the bowl closer towards him, until they’re practically sitting side-by-side.

Finally, Robin scoops up a spoonful of ice cream. She’s about to tell him to be cautious, because the amount he has on the spoon is enough to induce a brain freeze, but she can’t quite find her words. And then – his eyes on hers all the while – he brings the spoon up past his lips. Regina follows its disappearance into his mouth.

A bead of melted chocolate ice cream slips past the bowl of the spoon, trickling over his bottom lip. Robin’s eyes crinkle, faintly amused, but he lets out a moan at the taste of the dessert. “It’s good,” he says, smirking, while still turning it over in his mouth.

Regina nods along. She feels suddenly unreal, intangible. The world is dreamlike, and she is reaching forward. Her thumb spreads along the softness of Robin’s lips, and then, in grave contrast, his stubble. She brings it to her lips, taking it into her mouth, and sucks.

All of this, Robin watches with wide, unfocused eyes. He swallows the ice cream, wets his lips if just to drag his tongue along the place where she’d touched, and finds himself leaning closer. She smells like firewood and lost sleep, and her hands are so cool from holding the bowl when they cup his cheeks.

He’s expecting a kiss, and that is what she gives him. It’s soft and cold and briefly transports him to that world that Regina speaks of – with Henry, and ice cream, and fireside kisses. But when he opens his eyes again, he’s still here with her, and Regina isn’t pushing him away.

It’s well past midnight already, but Robin feels far from sleep.


End file.
